Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [68]
Only three minutes into my search, one of them slowly opened, and an Iraqi soldier stepped out, carrying an RPK light machine gun. I let him peek out a bit more as I adjusted the rifle to a distance of 461 yards and dialed another bit of windage onto the scope. This guy knew what he was doing and was being careful, deliberately taking his time before stepping into the open, but his caution was not enough to save him. I already had my crosshairs centered on his chest. I had no intention of letting him come close to shooting.
The mathematics of the battlefield, time, motion, distance, weather conditions, and angle and speed of the bullet merged into smooth calculations that I did in my head, without really thinking about it. Do this sort of thing long enough and those factors blend together.
Exhale, slow pull of one-two-three pounds of pressure on the trigger, and my rifle fired and bucked comfortably into my shoulder with the recoil. I was concentrating so hard that I barely heard the gunshot, but the round took the soldier dead center, and I saw a hole open eight inches below his throat. The force of impact threw him back down the stairs, leaving the door swinging slowly on its hinges.
Bob continued badgering us to return immediately. “Tell him we’re busy killing people,” Casey instructed his radio operator.
I slid my scope around some other buildings, down to ground level again, and along a street that ran perpendicular to our position. About a quarter mile away, several people were peeking around a distant corner. Civilians? Troops? I steadied up on the corner for two minutes, using the time to adjust for range and wind, and saw the barrel of an AK-47 poke into the open. The dark-haired soldier holding the weapon leaned forward, exposing only about the upper third of his body. Not much, but enough, and I owned him. I put a bullet through his chest and saw him flop down beside the building. Unseen hands took him by the ankles and pulled his body out of sight.
By this time, Officer Bob was furious and gave us a direct order over the radio to come back immediately. Casey tried to tell him that we were actively engaging targets on a threatened flank, but Bob replied with another order that gave us no choice but to leave. It meant that we were giving the enemy a wide avenue of approach.
We got lucky, because another good sniper, Sergeant Eric Meeks, showed up within minutes, recognized the threat, and took over the position. Over the next few minutes, Meeks took down another RPG gunner and four more Iraqi riflemen, effectively shutting down the street. But there had been a window of two to three minutes when the approach had been unguarded. Next time, we vowed, we would not be so obedient. If Officer Bob wanted us, he would have to come get us.
Back at the Main, I was stunned to learn that Mark Envin was one of the wounded Marines we had gone out to retrieve.
When the fight had broken out in the grove of date palms, Sergeant Major Dave Howell directed his Humvee to roar in close so he could direct the advancing grunts. AK-47 bullets were zinging about, and an RPG erupted from a trench line only six feet from the road, so they stopped their truck, and Howell got out of his Humvee with a grenade launcher in his hands. Evnin, the driver, jumped out right beside him. Dino Moreno also got into a shooting position. The job I had assigned them was to protect Howell, even in the teeth of enemy fire, and that’s exactly what they did until one of the enemy bullets burrowed beneath Mark’s flak jacket and tore through his femoral artery. Howell tried to stanch the flow of blood while Moreno gave covering fire, and Evnin looked up at Howell and wisecracked, “Look at this, asshole. You got me shot!”
My boy had lost a lot of blood before they could get him onto a medical evacuation helicopter, a big twin-rotored Chinook. He died in that bird before it reached the aid station.
It shook me. He was not the first, nor would he be the last, of our battalion to die, but Mark was the only man in my entire career to die directly